The invention concerns a method for the simultaneous showing of at least two temporally sequential events. The invention also concerns equipment for implementing this method.
According to the general concept of the present invention, the method is to be used particularly for sports events that take the form of racing (for example, ski racing, bobsled racing, speed skating) and also jumping (ski jumping, broadjumping, pole vaulting). It is already known how to record temporally sequential events and to show them simultaneously on a split screen. In order to substantially synchronize the course of events shown simultaneously, one of the two image memories, which are mostly in the form of a video tape, is experimentally wound forwards and backwards until the two events can run essentially parallel next to each other at the same time. It is already possible, through a procedure of this type, to compare events that have been artificially made to be parallel by means of recording, for example ski races, and to determine, for example, in which stretch or at which gate a racer made mistakes that became apparent as loss of time.
Despite this existing possibility of comparison, the known procedure is disadvantageous, in that a really exact paralleling of the type necessary for the comparison of relatively rapid events cannot be achieved manually. The known procedure makes this possible only in retrospect, that is, after each sports event has been recorded.
The prior art as in FUNK-TECHNIK, Vol. 40 (1985), No. 10, pages 409-410, shows a television device for reproducing several video signals. Two temporally sequential events, that is, a live television program and video recordings, can simultaneously be reproduced on a picture screen. however, this prior art does not suggest showing events of a similar nature parallel or synchronously on the picture screen.